W. P. Kinsella | Criticism

Dance Me Outside is a vibrant and funny collection of stories…. Written in the first person in a lean style, they concern an eighteen year old Indian named Silas Ermineskin who lives on a reserve just south of Edmonton, Alberta.

Silas is an impassive and resourceful kid, who, intent on his future, trains doggedly at a government technical school to be a mechanic. He shrugs off an ever-present prejudice that looms large as the distant Rocky Mountains. Traditionally, education is his only out, but English is a foreign language and he still hasn't got all the verbs right. He is also highly inexperienced with the white man's ways and getting someone who calls him a "wagon-burner" to tell him the time of day is like making the earth turn the other direction.

Kinsella, however, knows both sides well. "Feathers," for instance, is a comic, skilled portrayal of the...